by CW Browning
Damon chuckled and sat up, propping his pillows up behind him.
“You’re not losing your mind,” he assured her. “You really want to know what I think?”
Alina glanced at him. “Yes.”
“You might not like it.”
“Just get it out.”
“I think you blame yourself for John’s death. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. You didn’t have the information needed to even suspect that he would be in danger. When he survived the crash, you thought he would pull through. When he didn’t, and you found out about Dave’s letters, you blamed yourself for not seeing it coming. There’s no way you could have stopped it.”
“I should have known something was going on. He tried to tell me in the hospital, but I wouldn’t listen.”
Damon looked at her. “What?”
“The last time I saw him, he kept trying to apologize,” she said quietly, her eyes on some invisible spot across the room. She refused to look at him. “He was trying to tell me something, saying he was so sorry, and I thought he was just going over old ground again. I thought he was still trying to apologize for how things ended between us, and I wouldn’t listen. It wasn’t until afterwards that...well, that I realized he was trying to tell me about the emails from Dave.”
Damon turned to face her, reaching out and cupping her chin to gently force her to look at him.
“Lina, it’s not your fault,” he said firmly. “You didn’t inject him with potassium chloride, Kyle did. John’s death is not on you.”
Alina felt her bottom lip quiver and she bit it sharply, sucking in a gulp of air and willing the unexpected feeling of grief to pass.
“And you know what?” Damon asked, softening his tone, his eyes probing hers. “I’m not your responsibility, either. We’re going to take on Harry together, and that’s my choice. If anything happens to me, that won’t be your fault, either.”
“I know.”
“Really? Because your subconscious manifestations tell a different story.”
Alina let out a choked laugh. “Ass.”
She took a deep, calming breath and tried to push down the emotions clamoring for attention. Damon was right. John’s death wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t seem to make any difference to her feeling of guilt. Deep inside, she felt that she should have listened when he’d tried to tell her that day in the hospital, but she didn’t. If she had...
“Stop,” Damon said, cupping her face in his hands. She looked at him in surprise and he smiled faintly. “I know what’s going on in that head of yours. It’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter what you think he might have told you if you’d listened, it really doesn’t. The fact is, an assassin was hired to kill him. You know as well as I do what that means. John was dead the second Harry made the call.”
Alina gazed into his eyes, drawing strength from the bright blue depths. She felt her bottom lip tremble again despite her attempts to push the overwhelming feeling of sorrow down. Inhaling sharply, Viper focused on the only thing that would stop the onslaught of emotion.
“That’s a call Harry’s going to regret making,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.
“Not if you don’t let John go,” Damon replied, his voice just as low. “Until you accept John’s death and move on, Harry has a weapon to use against you. And you know he’ll use it, just like he used Dave against you all through training.”
He was right. She wasn’t able to think clinically when it came to John. Instead, these debilitating emotions threatened to paralyze her. She stared at him helplessly.
“I don’t know how,” she said brokenly. “I’m not like Stephanie. I can’t just cry every day and wait for it to get better; I don’t have that luxury. I have to find Angela before Harry decides she’s more trouble than she’s worth. And unless he keeps her permanently gagged, he will decide she’s not worth it.”
“We have to find Angela,” he said, “and we will. But you have to face up to the fact that John is gone. It sucks, and it’s not fair, but it’s how it is and you have to let him go.”
Alina had no idea what it was that pulled that final thread inside her, unraveling the weeks of pent-up grief she had carefully stored away. Perhaps it was the look of empathy in his eyes, or the fact that he acknowledged that it wasn’t fair. Nothing in their life was fair, but she’d known this was how it would be when she’d agreed to this life. John had made no such agreement. He deserved a long, full life, not a shot of potassium chloride in an IV when he was too weak to defend himself.
Her bottom lip quivered again and this time she didn’t push the feeling aside. Allowed to run free, grief welled up inside her, choking her and making it impossible to breathe. Alina sucked in some air and tried to turn away from Damon as panic at the raw emotion rolling through her set in. Instead of letting her go, Damon grabbed her arms and pulled her to him, holding her close as violent tremors went through her body.
“And here we go,” he murmured to himself, resting his chin on top of her head as he held her tight.
Alina didn’t hear him as another shudder ripped through her and her body released all the tension it had been holding onto for weeks. She took a deep, ragged breath and felt hot tears begin to burn a path down her face. The yawning, hollow feeling of emptiness that now accompanied thoughts of John engulfed her, and Alina could do nothing except bury her face in Damon’s neck and surrender to the vacuum.
She closed her eyes in an attempt to stem the flow of tears, but it didn’t make any difference. They kept coming, and Alina felt as if she was falling apart, getting sucked into a kind of void where nothing mattered except the grief ripping her into a thousand pieces.
John was gone. He was dead. He was never coming back. She would never see his pale blue eyes squinting in the sunlight before he put on his sunglasses again. His Ducati would never come roaring down the driveway again, and Raven would never again attack him when he crossed to the deck. The Firebird she loved so much had gone with him, along with all the memories, both good and bad, that they shared in it.
It was all gone.
The memories whirled through her mind like a tornado while waves of sorrow crashed over her. Alina tried to find something to hang on to, a thought to help her stem the flow of senseless grief, but they all kept spinning out of reach. Only one stayed constant: John was gone.
Through the storm, Damon was a solid, unmoving strength, his heartbeat steady and calm against hers, his arms strong around her. Alina clung to him as her world was torn apart, and the tears flowed unchecked, never once questioning why she drew such comfort and strength from him. It was enough that she did, and that he freely offered it. She wasn’t alone anymore, and she didn’t have to be strong. He would help her through this.
And then they would go after the bastard who started it all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The air was thick and heavy with humidity when Angela slowly became aware of the darkness. She tried to hang on to the comfortable nothingness of sleep, but a persistent feeling of unease kept nagging her, pulling her back toward consciousness. Something wasn’t right. The thought popped into her mind and she reluctantly came awake. Her arms and legs felt heavy, as if they were weighted down with something, but she knew that couldn’t be right. She was on her back, laying on some kind of seat, surrounded by dark, filtered light. Angela tried to push herself up, and that’s when she realized her arms were beneath her, and they wouldn’t move.
Sheer panic tore through her as she tried to pull her arms from behind her and felt hard plastic cut into her wrists. The last vestiges of sleep evaporated and she gasped, turning her head and straining to see through the gloom. She was on the backseat of some kind of vehicle and it was dark outside. What time was it? Where was she?
Angela swallowed her panic and forced herself to think clearly. What was the last thing she remembered? She was at her house with Michael, gathering her things to go to Lina’s. Michael took Anabelle out to the car and...
then what? She went to make sure the back door was locked.
Memory rushed back and she gasped. Someone had grabbed her from behind and she felt a sharp prick in her arm. What happened next was a blur. She remembered being disoriented as she was guided from the back door across the back yard. The houses seemed to be triple their size around her, and everything was doubled. Her legs had felt heavy and she wasn’t able to move them very well, but it hadn’t made any difference. She had been pulled away from the house and when she tried to call out for Michael, her tongue wouldn’t work and she couldn’t seem to form any words. Her lips moved, but nothing came out, not even a sound. A pickup truck was at the curb, and that was the last thing she remembered.
Oh my God, I’ve been taken! Lina was right!
Terror washed through her and she sat up quickly, looking around. She was in the backseat of the pickup and she leaned forward to peer out the side window. She couldn’t see much. The truck was stopped in some kind of parking lot between what looked like two eighteen-wheelers. Was she at a truck stop? Where was her kidnapper?
Angela gingerly tested the bonds at her wrists. They were immovable. She moved her feet, relieved when they moved freely. Good, only her hands were bound. Turning her back to the door closest to her, she awkwardly pulled the handle with her fingers and pushed. The door didn’t budge. Letting out half a sob, she moved to the other door and tried again, with the same result. Neither door would open.
Angela shifted to the middle of the bench seat and eyed the opening between the front seats. If child locks were keeping the back doors from opening, her only other choice was to try the front doors. The center console would be a problem, but she didn’t see any other option.
Her heart began pounding as she turned sideways and shifted her hip onto the console. Pushing against the back seat with one foot, she moved awkwardly between the seats, gripping the back of the driver’s seat with her bound hands to keep her balance. Coming to the end of the console, Angela paused and turned her head to gaze out of the windshield.
She was surrounded by trucks, all eighteen wheelers. She was in a rest stop and could see the bright lights of the gas and eating area in the distance. The pickup had been parked far away from the people, and Angela swallowed, her mouth painfully dry. If she was going to try to escape, she was going to have to do it through a sea of dark and silent tractor trailers. She wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the police dramas on TV. She knew what happened in dark truck stops on the highway. Uncertainty and fear paralyzed her, and Angela stared out the window at the distant lights, longing for the relative safety of crowds.
A door slammed next to her and Angela gasped, looking out the passenger’s door window and shrinking back against the side of the driver’s seat fearfully. A large man walked away from the cab of the truck beside her, heading toward the lights in the distance. He never glanced at the pickup.
She exhaled, her heart beating a rapid tattoo against her chest, and twisted around to look out the driver side door. The truck parked on the other side was dark and appeared empty. Taking a deep breath, Angela pulled her legs from the backseat and managed to swing one around the back of the passenger’s seat. Her foot landed on the seat, but the maneuver made her lose her tenuous grip on the seat behind her and she fell backwards into the driver’s seat. Unable to use her hands to steady herself, her head smacked the door, making her grunt and sending a sharp pain down her neck.
Ignoring the discomfort, Angela pulled her right leg through the gap between the seats and sat up, peering out the windshield. In the distance, she could see people moving between the parking lots and the building, but no one seemed to be heading in her direction.
Angela felt behind her for the door handle, exhaling when her questing fingers located it. With one last fearful glance towards the building in the distance, she took a deep breath and pulled the handle, opening the door. The silence in the parking area was broken immediately by the shrill wail of an anti-theft alarm.
Angela gasped and swung her legs out the door, sliding out of the truck and hitting the pavement. Her legs trembled and, as she moved to take a step, she realized that her muscles felt like jelly. The car alarm was blaring in her ears and she knew it was only a matter of seconds before someone looked to see what was going on. Gritting her teeth, Angela resolutely turned towards the back of the truck, ignoring the pins and needles shooting down her legs. While she admitted to herself that she hadn’t really had a set plan in mind when she opened the door to escape, she was fully aware that the alarm complicated things. She couldn’t head straight for the safety of people now. Her assailant would know she had managed to escape.
Stupid! I should have looked to see if there was an alarm, she thought disgustedly, forcing one foot in front of the other as fast as her weakened muscles would allow. And what the hell did they do to me? Why won’t my legs work?
One question led to another and, before she knew it, fear was choking her and robbing her of breath. She forced herself to stop thinking. It didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that she reached the safety of crowds and enlisted help before her kidnapper caught her again.
The darkness between the tractor trailers enveloped her as she moved quickly away from the pickup and deeper into the rows of silent, looming trucks. As she got further away, the feeling in her legs slowly returned to normal and she picked up the pace, breaking into a run. If she could loop around to the end of the parking lot, she might be able to come up behind the rest stop building.
The sound of the car alarm lessened as she put distance between the pickup and herself, and Angela wound her way through the trucks, her heart pounding. They were all silent and still, the drivers either in the rest stop restaurant or asleep, and she was both grateful and terrified. On the one hand, she desperately needed help. On the other, she had no idea if she had simply jumped out of the pan and into the fire. Her mind shot back to one true crime episode that followed a serial killer truck driver and Angela gulped as she ran.
She had to make it to the safety of the rest area building. There was no other way.
The car alarm in the distance suddenly stopped, and so did her heart. Angela came to a halting stop beside a long eighteen wheeler, gasping for breath, and listened. The sudden silence was more terrifying than the shrieking alarm. He knew she was gone, and now he would come after her.
Catching her breath on a sob, Angela tried to hear over the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears and her heart pounding in her chest. He would know she hadn’t gone straight for the rest area. If she had, he would have seen her. There were three directions she could have gone: to the woods behind the parking lot, to the highway, or the direction she had gone - into the trucks. Forcing herself to think, Angela took a deep breath and began moving. No matter what, she couldn’t stay where she was.
She reached the front of the truck beside her and peered around it, searching in the darkness. She could only see as far as the next truck. Light from the occasional street lamp didn’t penetrate this far, and the shadows seemed endless. Angela looked to her right, hesitating. Should she risk moving toward the rest area? Or should she continue to put distance between herself and the pickup before running for safety? Indecision paralyzed her for a few precious seconds before she decided to risk it. There were three trucks between her and the open expanse of parking lot leading to the building. Once she got to the edge of the last one, she would sprint across the parking lot. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all she had.
Sweat covered her face and trickled down her back. Wherever she was, the air was heavy and humid and the temperature had to be over seventy degrees. The high in Jersey that day was only fifty-eight. That could only mean she was somewhere south.
Angela frowned as she began moving swiftly toward the end of the line of trucks in front of her. She didn’t even know where she was! How the hell was she going to get back to New Jersey? She had no money, no identification, nothing on her that would help get her home. Hell, sh
e didn’t even have her phone. All of that was in her purse, which had been in the house when she was taken.
A door slammed somewhere behind her and Angela gasped, spinning around to peer into the murky blackness behind her. She couldn’t see anything and, her heart in her throat, she turned and began running toward that last truck. Screw being quiet. She had to get out of there.
Fear gave her speed and she flew toward the edge of the parking area, her eyes on the lights in the distance. She was just coming to the front of the second-to-last truck when her foot hit something laying across the tarmac. Angela gasped and had the terrifying sensation of falling without the use of her arms to aid her. Without thinking, she turned her shoulders to try to break her fall. Her left shoulder slammed into the pavement hard, sliding a few inches as her body weight carried her forward. Angela let out a muffled cry as searing pain shot through her and her head hit the ground.
She lay immobile for a few seconds, the wind knocked out of her and stars swimming behind her eyelids. Excruciating pain flowed down her left arm and she bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. Tears blurred her vision as she rolled onto her stomach and tried to bring herself to her knees. Another rush of pain rolled through her as her arms automatically tried to help balance her, and she bit harder on her lip in agony. The pain shifted to her lip and Angela felt something thick and wet slide slowly down her chin. Looking down, she watched as a fat drop of blood splashed onto the pavement. With a soft gasp, she released her bottom lip and tasted blood. Spitting it out, she struggled to her feet, her heart slamming against her ribs as she heard footsteps on the other side of the truck. They were moving quickly to the front and, in another second, they would round the corner and see her.
Casting a frantic look around, Angela turned to run back into the darkness of the trucks and away from the footsteps. She didn’t know who they belonged to, but she sure as hell wasn’t taking a chance. The pain in her left arm was almost unbearable, but she resolutely ignored it, darting behind the next tractor trailer. Once she was out of sight, she leaned against the back of the truck, gasping for breath and trying to fight back sobs of pain and terror. She was never going to make it.